Washington DC - Former Transportation Secretary and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg slammed Vice President JD Vance for serving alongside a man he once called "America's Hitler."

Buttigieg on Sunday took to popular podcast Pod Save America to slam Vance for being an unprincipled person who is serving under President Donald Trump despite previously referring to him as "America's Hitler."

"I think he’s very intelligent. I think he’s very smooth. I think he’s very capable," Buttigieg said of Vance while speaking with podcast host Jon Favreau. "Let’s be clear, we’re talking about a very smart person, not a very principled person."

"It didn’t take him many years to go from comparing Trump to Hitler – which he did – to saying that he ought to be the leader of the free world."

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During the interview, Buttigieg accused Vance of becoming one of the coastal elites he had railed against in his book Hillbilly Elegy and said that he shifted from more centrist views towards the far right when he saw it as politically advantageous.

His comments also reference text messages revealed by Vice News last year in which Vance had called Trump "loathsome" and a "demagogue" whom the Republican Party had spawned through "collective neglect."

"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a##hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful), or that he’s America's Hitler," Vance allegedly texted. "How’s that for discouraging?"

Vance has not denied having previously disliked Trump, telling CNN in 2021 that while he criticized the now-president in 2016, he regrets "being wrong about the guy."